Things to Look for When Identifying the Best Colocation Facility

Despite the surge in the popularity of cloud computing, hosting services in colocation data centers are still popular with small, medium, and enterprise businesses. Some companies may not be ready to adopt the cloud and may see colocation as an ideal entry point.

Undoubtedly, businesses benefit from outsourcing their IT services to colocation sites, perhaps looking for significant cost savings, around-the-clock support, and high-end secure facilities.

Colocation involves a third-party data center hosting privately owned servers, storage, and networking. An everyday example is a private company lifting and shifting physical server racks from their onsite premises to an alternative location.

For the customer, the configuration of their kit does not change. But someone else now ‘feeds and waters’ their server platform. Minor networking changes are needed, but the host handles this before moving in.

Are you in the market for colocation services? Atlantic.Net has access to premium data centers across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Join us as we discover the top reasons why businesses choose colocation data centers.

Geographic Planning

One of the top reasons businesses choose colocation ahead of public cloud providers is that they want their servers close to their physical location. These businesses may need to visit onsite for maintenance regularly, perhaps to reboot equipment or to troubleshoot server and hardware issues.

Perhaps the business is based in the same town or state as the chosen colocation facility. However, it’s also possible that the company may select a facility geographically disparate from their other locations, maybe for disaster recovery purposes or as off-site data storage.

Either way, geography is critical.

Reliability and Performance

Colocation facilities are usually high-end, featuring fail-safe, reliable, and highly redundant power and cooling services. As a result, uptime statistics are some of the best available, with some hosting providers offering 100% uptime SLA.

Standard facilities feature dual power feeds and redundant network connectivity from a wide selection of network providers. Ultra-fast uplinks are expected, usually ranging from 1GB to 200GB circuits. In addition, colo typically provides direct access to the cloud using ultra-fast and very low latency point of presence connectivity.

Colocation provides a clean, temperature-controlled, dust-free environment that improves the longevity of server hardware.

Physical Data Center Security

Colocation facilities are highly secure environments in discrete, safe compounds, protected by perimeter fencing and 24×7 onsite security. In addition, customers are given private suites in highly secure data centers to store their server hardware. CCTV and onsite access controls and procedures are usually standard, but the level of security depends on the data center tiering classification.

Colocation sites adhere to the five pillars of security:

• Defending Outside the Perimeter: This is achieved by employing monitored CCTV, perimeter audio alerts that trigger when someone gets too close to the perimeter wall, strict pre-approved access control for visitors, gates, fences, and security lighting.
• Defending Within the Perimeter: This is achieved using CCTV and audio alarms, radar surveillance, security lighting, and often security patrols – sometimes with guard dogs.
• Protect the Data Center Structure: This is achieved with fire and intruder alarm systems, CCTV, and control key access controls.
• Protect the Server Room: Every data center suite needs multi-direction CCTV and key card access controls. In addition, server racks should be locked and discrete labeling should be in place.
• Protect the Data: have an alerting system when data center doors are opened, and when engineers are on site, guests should be escorted into shared areas.

Skilled Onsite Staff

A significant advantage of choosing a colocation data center is having access to a highly trained team of technical support professionals. Colocation typically comes with three types of support: do-it-yourself, smart hands, and full technical support.

Smart hands, sometimes called “Hands and Eyes,” is when you get access to data center engineers to perform everyday tasks on your servers. This might be rebooting a server, escorting an engineer, or hooking up a terminal to the server for high-level investigations.

Most colo sites offer a managed service that offers full technical support. This includes technical support, smart hands, access to professional services, project managers, and service delivery managers. In addition, a fully managed service usually includes around-the-clock server monitoring and access to 24×7 operations teams.

Future Growth

Colocation is used by businesses that want to grow in the coming years. Hosting providers offer expansion options in their colocation packages. This will consist of additional rack space. If the business demands faster network connectivity to meet future bandwidth demands, these services can be bolted on.

There is also the option to consume additional managed services from the hosting provider to help with future growth. For example, some businesses may leverage shared storage platforms or private cloud hosting. Other companies may migrate servers to a managed platform such as a public cloud or shared hosting facility.

Award Winning Atlantic.Net Hosting Solutions

Atlantic.Net is an award-winning hosting provider with over 30 years worth of experience. We provide effective hosting solutions to an extensive list of leading businesses throughout the United States, Europe, and beyond.

Contact our sales team today to find out how heading through 2022, Atlantic.Net can help your organization meet and exceed your requirements with managed or unmanaged hosting solutions customized to meet your business’s needs.

Learn more about our colocation facilities by speaking to the team today.

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Read More About Colocation Hosting

• What Is Colocation Hosting?
• Orlando Colocation Hosting

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